Investors expect a successful holiday season for Apple as well, but 2012 is unclear for now

Apple's shareholders have been sweating it out over the last couple of months as they saw the company's famed leader, former CEO Steve Jobs, step down and allow Tim Cook to take the reins. But despite this eventful period of time, the iPhone 4S blew past all previous iPhone sales records and restored faith in investors' eyes.

In addition to the replacement of Jobs, investors also worried about the growth of Google's Android mobile operating system, a bleak economic outlook, decreased consumer spending, and a relaunch of Microsoft and Nokia into the mobile war. Some investors even worry that Apple's share have "gone too far, too fast."

But many contribute this blowout sales record to some uncommon factors. For instance, this is the first iPhone launch that included Sprint as a carrier, racking up some extra sales due to new availability.

While this next event occurred after the initial iPhone 4S pre-order weekend, some investors say that the BlackBerry outage, which spread across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, the United States and Canada, helped Apple pick up a few extra sales after the release of the iPhone 4S on October 14.

Investors predict knockout results from Apple's July-September period, and also believe that the upcoming holiday season will be positive for Apple as well thanks to the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2.

For the September quarter, Wall Street expects 20 million to 22 million iPhone sales, a little above 4 million Mac sales, and 10 million iPad sales.

Current fiscal fourth-quarter revenue predictions are at $29.6 billion and earnings per share at $7.38.

While 2011 is looking good for Apple according to investors, it's unclear what 2012 will hold for the tech giant. But some say a third version of the iPad is expected, and may help catapult Apple into one of the top ranks once again.

"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer